According to industry data, $2.6 billion will be spent on candy in 2019, and Americans purchase nearly 600 million pounds of candy for Halloween.

But a new initiative is helping keep some of those pesky candy wrappers out of landfills.

Rubicon Global, based in Atlanta, has launched a Halloween campaign designed to help elementary and middle school teachers across the U.S. educate their students on the importance of recycling and keeping candy wrappers out of landfills.

Throughout the month of October, Rubicon will be running its first ever “Trick or Trash” campaign, offering teachers in elementary and middle schools across the U.S. a recycling and circular economy lesson plan, as well as a candy and snack wrappers Zero Waste Box through TerraCycle for students to discard their Halloween candy wrappers within. All of these items are being provided free of charge.

“We believe this campaign can be a catalyst for the next generation to recycle more and reduce waste in our world,” says Nate Morris, the founder and CEO of Rubicon. “Our hope is this program is a great addition to everyone’s Halloween festivities while providing teachers with a curriculum with which to educate students on how to develop positive recycling habits.”

“TerraCycle’s mission has always been to eliminate the idea of waste, and we’ve proven that solutions do exist for items that may seem difficult to recycle,” says Tom Szaky, the founder and CEO of TerraCycle. “Rubicon not only shares our commitment but has taken it to the next level by spearheading the ‘Trick or Trash’ Halloween campaign to reduce the impact of candy and snack wrappers on the environment and help pave the way for a greener future.”

Rubicon Global is a technology company that powers a digital marketplace, provides a suite of software products for waste, recycling, and smart city solutions, and collects and analyzes data for businesses and governments worldwide. Using technology to help turn businesses into more sustainable enterprises and neighborhoods into greener places to live and work, Rubicon’s mission is to end waste in all of its forms by helping its partners find economic value in their waste streams and confidently execute on their sustainability goals.

Teachers can download the lesson plan immediately upon sign-up. After completing the sign-up, a candy and snack wrappers Zero Waste Box will be shipped to their school. Once delivered, teachers can simply set up the box in their classroom, cafeteria or hallway and encourage the students to deposit all of their candy wrappers in the box. Once the box is full, teachers can close the box, attached the prepaid shipping label and ship it off free of charge.

Sign up for the free “Trick or Trash” Recycling and the Circular Economy lesson plan and the candy and snack wrappers Zero Waste Box are on Rubicon's website.

Alcoa reports revenue down 5 percent in Q3

Alcoa Corp., the aluminum producer based in Pittsburgh, has reported its third-quarter 2019 revenue totaled $2.6 billion, down 5 percent sequentially due to lower alumina prices.

“Revenues are down 5 percent as higher bauxite and alumina shipments were more than offset by lower realized prices for alumina and aluminum,” says William Oplinger, executive vice president and chief financial officer. “Revenues declined $823 million, again on lower alumina and aluminum prices.”

The company’s second-quarter 2019 net loss totaled $221 million, which included $134 million in charges associated with divestiture of the Alcoa’s Spanish aluminum plants Avilés and La Coruña and a $37 million restructuring charge for severance costs related to implementing a new operating model.

The new model, which goes into effect Nov. 1, will result in annual savings of approximately $60 million in operating costs and in a leaner corporate structure through the elimination of the company’s business unit structure and consolidation of sales, procurement and other commercial capabilities at an enterprise level.

Alcoa reports an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $388 million, down $67 million from the prior quarter due to lower alumina pricing that was partially offset by higher alumina sales volume and lower production costs. The company generated $174 million in cash from operations during the third quarter of 2019. The company used $81 million in cash flow for financing and $76 million in investing activities.

The company also reports a record quarterly production of bauxite and alumina since the company’s 2016 launch.

“Our bauxite and alumina segments reached new quarterly production records since our launch in 2016, and our aluminum business continued to rebound,” says Alcoa President and Chief Executive Officer Roy Harvey.

“Since our inception as a public company in 2016, we have relentlessly focused on strengthening our company through portfolio and balance sheet actions,” Harvey says. “Just last month, we introduced a new operating model to create a leaner, more operator-centric organization, and today we are announcing a significant review of our portfolio that demonstrates a drive for continued improvement.”

Over the next 12 to 18 months, Alcoa intends to pursue non-core asset sales expected to generate an estimated $500 million to $1 billion in net proceeds. Based on annualized 2019 year-to-date results, the company estimates approximately $50 million to $100 million in reduced adjusted EBITDA due to asset sales.

Over the next five years, Alcoa plans to realign its operating portfolio, and is placing 1.5 million metric tons of smelting capacity and 4 million metric tons of alumina refining capacity under review. The review will consider opportunities for significant improvement, potential curtailments, closures or divestitures “with a focus on increasing margins across the value chain.”

“We must take actions to strengthen our company further given the current market conditions,” Harvey says. “At this time, it's appropriate to refresh our strategic priorities to better define our destination.”

After the portfolio transformation, the company expects to be the lowest emitter of carbon dioxide among all global aluminum companies per ton of emissions in both smelting and refining. In addition, Alcoa anticipates that up to 85 percent of its smelting portfolio will be powered by renewable energy, building upon the company’s existing sustainability profile.

SDI feels the effects of declining aluminum demand, value

Steel Dynamics Inc., the electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaker headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has reported that its third-quarter 2019 net sales totaled $2.5 billion, while its net income was $151 million, or 69 cents per diluted share. The company’s net sales for the comparable quarter of 2018 were $3.2 billion, with net income of $398 million, or $1.69 per diluted share, which included charges related to fair value purchase accounting adjustments of 4 cents per diluted share and a tax benefit of 4 cents per diluted share. The company’s sequential second-quarter 2019 net sales totaled $2.8 billion, with net income of $194 million, or 87 cents per diluted share.

"Our third quarter 2019 consolidated operating income was $228 million and adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) $315 million," says Mark D. Millett, SDI president and chief executive officer. "The team delivered a solid third-quarter performance in a challenging steel pricing environment, as average steel pricing declined in the quarter, more than offsetting the benefit of lower scrap costs.”

SDI reports that it generated $444 million in cash flow from operations during the third quarter of 2019 and increased liquidity to a record-high $2.4 billion. The company paid cash dividends of $53 million and repurchased $115 million of its common stock during the quarter, as well.

"We are pleased by the recent rating upgrades to an investment-grade credit by all three credit rating agencies," says Theresa E. Wagler, executive vice president and chief financial officer. "This is a natural progression of our growth and recognition of our strong balance sheet profile and through-cycle free cash flow generation capability. Due to the strength of our liquidity profile, capital structure and free cash flow generating business model, we have the flexibility for continued growth and responsible shareholder distributions while also being committed to maintaining investment-grade credit metrics,” she adds.

SDI’s steel operations’ operating income totaled $240 million for the quarter, which was 19 percent lower than sequential second-quarter 2019 results. The sequential earnings decline was driven by lower realized product pricing and decreased shipments in the company's sheet steel operations, which more than offset the benefit of lower scrap costs in the quarter, the company says. Its average external product selling price for its steel operations decreased $70 sequentially to $809 per ton, while the average ferrous scrap cost per ton melted at the company's steel mills decreased $41 to $275 per ton in the quarter.

The company's steel processing locations represented 17 percent of the shipment mix in the third quarter of this year compared with 16 percent in the sequential quarter and 12 percent in the third quarter of 2018. These locations use steel products as their primary raw material, and the associated steel procurement costs represented 17 percent of the steel operations’ cost of goods sold in the third quarter of 2019, 18 percent in the sequential quarter and 9 percent in the third quarter of 2018, SDI says.

Third-quarter 2019 operating income from its metals recycling operations decreased to $3 million, compared to $11 million in the sequential second quarter, which SDI says was primarily a result of the declining aluminum demand and selling values. SDI shipped 20 million fewer pounds of nonferrous scrap in the third quarter of 2019 versus the same time in 2018.

Ferrous shipments and selling values also declined in the quarter, with prime scrap indices falling almost $30 per gross ton from July to September. According to the slides that accompanied SDI’s Q3 2019 earnings call, 66 percent of the ferrous scrap volume the company sold in the quarter was to its own steel mills.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, net income was $550 million, or $2.47 per diluted share, with net sales of $8.1 billion, as compared to net income of $988 million, or $4.17 per diluted share, with net sales of $8.9 billion for the same period in 2018. Net sales decreased 9 percent, while operating income of $805 million decreased 41 percent from record-high 2018 year-to-date results of $1.4 billion, SDI notes. The decline in earnings was driven by decreased sheet steel product pricing, as hot-roll coil price indices fell approximately $185 per ton, or 25 percent, since December 2018.

Compared with prior year results, the average year-to-date external product selling price for SDI’s overall steel operations decreased $53 to $863 per ton. The average year-to-date ferrous scrap cost per ton melted at the company's steel mills decreased $31 to $309 per ton.

SDI generated cash flow from operations of $987 million, paid cash dividends of $148 million and repurchased $292 million of its common stock during the first nine months of 2019.

"Based on domestic steel demand fundamentals, we are constructive regarding 2020 North American steel market dynamics," Millett says. "We believe North American steel consumption will experience modest growth and will be supported by further steel import reductions and the end of steel inventory destocking. We believe current trade actions could have a positive impact in further reducing unfairly traded steel imports into the United States, including coated flat-roll steel, which could have a significant positive impact for Steel Dynamics as we are the largest non-automotive flat roll steel coater in the United States.”

Millett continues, “In combination with our existing and newly announced expansion initiatives, there are firm drivers in place for our continued growth.”

Millett adds, “This facility is designed to have product size and quality capabilities beyond that of existing electric-arc-furnace flat-roll steel producers, competing even more effectively with the integrated steel model and foreign competition.”

SDI has targeted regional markets that represent more than 27 million tons of flat-roll steel consumption, he says, including Mexico. “This facility is located and designed to have a meaningful competitive advantage in those regions.”

Erema, Baerlocher and APK take on plastic film recycling challenge at K 2019

Austria-based Erema is hosting live recycling demonstrations at its Circonomic Centre
throughout K 2019 Oct. 16-23 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Different case studies
will show how various recycling challenges are tackled along the value chain,
according to a news release.

Recycling postconsumer plastic film presents
a challenge, even with careful raw material preparation in a modern recycling
facility and state-of-the-art-equipment.

The problematic step is the reprocessing,
which requires melt filtration through fine filters to get rid of contaminants.
The material is exposed to very high temperature that frequently renders the
polymer useless for film blowing. To avoid this, it is key to restabilize the material
to protect the polymer during the melt filtration and the following processing
step.

Erema, Germany-based recycling
technologies company APK and Baerlocher will highlight how the combined know-how
of machine manufactures, additive suppliers and processors enables upcycling of
plastic film into a new product.

Erema will use an Intarema TVEplus film
recycling line, which is installed at APK, to demonstrate how a small add-on, a
Koch-Technic feeder, can expand the number of business cases the machinery can
take on even further. This feeder is used to introduce an additive of the Baeropol
T-Blend family of products from Baerlocher into the process.

The blend is an “important enabler to
bring the additive dimension into recycling," the company says.

By combining the processing equipment with
the additive concept, APK has been able to maximize the added value they bring
into its commercial product, which can be used in demanding applications, including
construction films.

Republic Services to expand CNG-powered fleet

Republic Services Inc., Phoenix, has announced it is continuing to expand its natural gas-powered fleet as it makes progress toward its greenhouse gas reduction goals. The company says it will operate an additional 156 solid waste collection trucks powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) throughout the country by the end of 2019, bringing the total number of vehicles running on alternative fuels to more than 3,100.

With one of the largest vocational fleets in the country, Republic's CNG fleet saves roughly 26 million gallons of diesel fuel annually, the company says in a news release. The new CNG-powered trucks replace older, diesel-powered vehicles and help decrease air emissions and reduce unwanted noise. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each new CNG truck deployed is equivalent to planting 600 mature trees each year, Republic says.

"The Republic Services team cares deeply about protecting the environment today and for generations to come," says Pete Keller, Republic’s vice president of recycling and sustainability. "With an expanding fleet comprised of vehicles that produce significantly less greenhouse gas emissions, we're making a difference throughout the communities we serve."

In July, Republic unveiled long-term sustainability goals, which include a climate change target designed to reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent by 2030. This emissions reduction target is approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

For more information about Republic Services' sustainability platform and to view the latest reports, visit its website.